Three real-life conversions that turned big travel dreams into road-ready rigs
Many people love to own a motorhome, but cost in many cases makes it prohibitive. Here, we talk to three Australians who found an alternative way to make the dream a reality by building their dream rig.
Emma & Thom Shaw: the vintage Viscount rebuild
We’ve just finished rebuilding our van for the second time. It’s a Viscount Supreme from around 1978 to 1982. When we bought it in 2018, it had the original avocado-coloured banquette and no bathroom or toilet, obviously. So we gutted it, reclad the exterior (replacing the mustard stripe with pink) and put an off-road chassis on it. The chassis was a giant drama as the company doing it went into receivership while it had our van, and we thought we’d lost it for a while!
We changed the whole layout, adding a window and moving the door to put a permanent queen-sized bed at the front, with storage and a pull-out outdoor kitchen underneath so we can cook outside. The wheel arches dictated the position of the couches and kitchen, but really, the only thing we kept was the shape of the van. We got a lot of ideas from Instagram and Pinterest, which has good DIY content, and it was just the two of us working on it. We probably could have bought a new van for not much more, but we loved the look of the old vans and how much light all the windows let in.
Now we have two little girls who are four and one, and our plan was just to replace the shower with bunk beds, but the van had some leaks, so Thom gutted it a second time. We’d used our indoor shower less than 10 times during our travels, so we don’t miss it at all. Instead, we installed an outdoor shower with hot water.
The longest time we’ve spent in the van in one stretch is nine months travelling through the Northern Territory, outback Queensland and the east coast. We’re just back from South Australia, and we’re trying to go somewhere in Victoria every other weekend.
Follow Emma and Thom Shaw on Instagram @exploreshaw, see exploreshaw.com
Zak Rapley & Olivia Corless: “Dory the Defender” pop-top conversion
The Land Rover Defender TD5 110 is my dream car. We bought a second-hand, 2003 model with all the modifications in Geelong, and it blew a head gasket before we even got it back to Melbourne. We fixed it, and then we ‘popped’ it. Instead of putting a rooftop tent on top, we took the roof off and built a frame inside so the whole roof can be raised; it’s quite extreme, but it’s turned our 4WD into a motorhome; meet Dory the Defender. It means we don’t have to leave the car to get into bed, and we can now stand up in it. The welded aluminium frame is a DIY kit from Murray Jones at Rijidij Off Road in Winchelsea; ours was the first vehicle to test the DIY kit, so it was a bit experimental. It cost $11,500, but alternative options can be up to $25,000, so the DIY element, although an undertaking, is definitely a cost-saving!
You don’t have to be a mechanic, but it helps to be mechanically minded; there’s nothing in the process you can’t learn while doing it. We’ve since sprayed it to match the car. My partner Liv and I are driving Dory from home on the Mornington Peninsula, to Adelaide, following the free camps along the Murray River up into the centre to do the 4WD tracks; Oodnadatta and the Birdsville track, and eventually the Gibb River Road and Cape York...
Follow Zak and Liv on Instagram and YouTube @dorythedefender
Aquila Ana Bergstrom: A 1974 Kombi restored for an off-grid lap
I’ve chosen to do my van conversion the most complicated way; in another country.
I work as a field archaeologist and university lecturer, but my dream of road-tripping Australia in a Volkswagen Kombi started when I was eight years old. What began as a childhood fantasy has slowly evolved into a carefully planned (and slightly chaotic) way to travel one long lap of Australia.
Enter Isla: a 1974 German Volkswagen Kombi I found online while based in Indonesia for work last year. After a full restoration by a friend who runs a vintage car restoration business in Bali, Isla is now being shipped to Australia. Her engine and electronics have been completely rehauled, rust removed, and her paint transformed from feral blue to a custom KitchenAid-matched cream. I’ve also now got her birth certificate from VW.
Inside, the old rock-and-roll bed has been replaced with a proper mattress, and a pull-out side kitchen sits beneath a custom awning, my favourite feature. Once home, Isla will be fitted with lithium batteries, inverters and solar blankets, creating a fully off-grid setup designed for comfort, curiosity, and the road less travelled.
And I am absolutely having aircon. During university, I spent a year and a half living out of a very tired Mitsubishi Delica — a rust bucket on wheels that delivered 40-degree summers, open windows and mosquitoes buzzing directly into my ears. I swore never again.
I’m based in Noosa and will be heading south where there are no stingers, making the slowest way possible around Australia to see and document Indigenous Australian archaeological sites.
Follow Aquila on Instagram @paradisefound
